Tim Burns, The sound is carved from the silence, 2022. Oil on wood, 60 x 63cm. Courtesy: the artist and Bett Gallery.

They come as a shock. They are beautiful and intriguing and confounding. The experience is is a bit like that of first seeing the James Webb Telescope’s photograph of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it was 4.6 billion years ago. These new works by Tim Burns not only defy expectations, but they also seem somehow à rebours, against history, against nature. They hover weightlessly in front of the gallery walls, framed by psychedelic backlighting, by a nimbus of pure colour.

Opening event: 2 September 5:30 – 7:30pm.